News coverage of Ukraine deaths vs. Central African Republic deaths

[Polito Vega]

When people in caucasian countries die, it's big news in the MSM, often front-page in online news websites.

But how many of you know that 22 people were just killed in Central Africa, and the country is now in the verge of "genocide" according to Reuters?

People in political forums don't seem to care much about Africa, either.

Several possibilities IMO. Tell me which of these possibilities you consider most plausible or cite a reason of your own.

-News media probably believes their (probably mostly white) readers will click more on white-people-dying articles.

-As American outlets, we have to "sock it to Putin", who is unpopular in America, so highlighting that Russia killed 6 Ukranians allows us to sock it to Putin. There is no deeply hated Central African leader to sock it to.

- News media owners care about what happens powerful, big, famous countries, not about poor countries.

Anyways, here's a rare article from yesterday on deaths in Central Africa which was obscured by news from Ukraine.


22 reported killed in clashes over Central African Republic town.
"ANGUI (Reuters) - At least 22 people, mainly civilians, were killed in clashes between mainly Muslim rebels and Christian militia in the Central African Republic earlier this week, the local Red Cross said on Wednesday.

The clashes took place on Monday in Grimari, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast of Bangui, and coincide with a push into the interior by French and African forces struggling to contain violence that experts warn has pushed the country to the verge of genocide."

[CFLDem]

1. I bet big media thinks

their audience doesn't care about Africa "because they're always killing each other anyways."

Same attitude with murders in the ghetto.

Really disgusting it all is.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. Another, rather grim, option: "huge numbers of people die horribly in Africa" is not news.

[Jamaal510]

3. K&R

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. More complex than that.

For example. US readers usually do not care of much more than the local news, you are lucky if state and national enters the picture. And forever home stories trump city council.

Americans are very provincial.

And news organizations stopped investing in foreign bureaus. These days if you've noticed, news organizations are feeding info to each other and sharing correspondents. Hell, msnbc has one dedicated foreign correspondent, so they direct resources where threats to peace (worldwide) are perceived to be the worst.

In the 1970s I read the NYT when I could, since back then they covered Mexico better than Mexican media. The NYT does not have a bureau in Mexico City any longer.

I hope that helps explains some of it. And some is the decision from media of what matters, but that happens in every news organization, why I have a blog. I pitch policy stories often, and often they are shot down for fluff.